


Worthy Scar

by KrysKrossZee



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Dragons, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Charlie Weasley, POV Male Character, POV Third Person, Portals, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27797014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrysKrossZee/pseuds/KrysKrossZee
Summary: Charlie finds a stranger in the middle of the dragon reserve who is about to become lunch, but just who is he and how did he get here?
Relationships: Charlie Weasley/Zuko
Comments: 5
Kudos: 45
Collections: Cast the Dice 2020





	Worthy Scar

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts used-
> 
> Cast The Dice 2020: Large Straight. Scars.

Charlie stared at the boy who was lying on the ground between him and the dragon he was meant to be feeding. The dragon, a Hebridean Black named Bella, was usually extremely fussy about who she let near her, but for some reason she had allowed this stranger not only within striking distance of herself, but fairly close to her nest. He knew that really he needed to get the boy out of there, but he wasn’t sure how he was meant to do that without risking his own hide. He’d worked at the sanctuary, and with Bella, for about a year now, ever since he had left Hogwarts and Hagrid had somehow managed to get him an interview here. Generally he tried to avoid Bella. She was the dragon in his care that probably hated him the most - for reasons that he really couldn’t explain.

Today, however, he was out of luck. All the other employees were otherwise engaged so he had been put on feeding duty, and Bella… Well, she was of course one of the dragons that didn’t actually know how to hunt for herself. Except it almost looked as though she had hunted for herself the way that the body of the boy was just lying there in front of her. Charlie had frozen in place when he had first approached Bella’s area, but it appeared that the boy had no obvious injuries, so it was unlikely that she had tried to make a meal out of him after all.

He paused for a moment as he tried to figure out what was his best move from here. Would it make things better or worse if he fed Bella now? Would she think that the boy - or even Charlie himself - was trying to steal her ‘kill’ if he sent the deer he was levitating behind him in her direction? He swallowed thickly as he thought the situation over. He couldn’t even shout to the boy or he would end up drawing attention to the fact that he was even there in the first place; the last thing either of them needed was for Bella to actually pursue Charlie.

In the end, he had to attempt to distract the dragon with the deer. It was already dead, at least, so there wasn’t a chance of it running off and Bella wreaking havoc while he tried to save the boy. He waited until the dragon was ripping into the deer carcass before he sprinted over to the boy, checking he was breathing before basically throwing him over his shoulder. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to run under the boy’s weight, but he did manage to walk briskly (backwards) away from Bella and into the coverage of the trees.

He made sure that he was some distance away before he dropped the boy, probably a little more roughly than he should have, but he didn’t really have a choice. He was strong, but not so strong that a dead weight was going to get away from him. He checked the boy over again, wincing slightly when he saw the scar over his left eye. For a brief second he thought that Bella must have done that but upon closer inspection he realised that it was in fact an old injury and the dragon was off the hook.

The boy appeared to be otherwise unharmed, even though he was still unconscious. Charlie pulled his wand out again and cast rennervate on him, though he wasn’t entirely sure if that was going to work or not. He’d never had to use the spell before, which he knew was a blessing in itself, but it didn’t make him feel any more comfortable in the long run.

The boy’s body jolted and slowly his eyes flickered open. He was staring up at Charlie who was now kneeling on the forest floor beside him, his eyes fixed on the boy’s face, though he was doing his best not to stare at the boy’s scar itself.

“Who are you?” The boy asked as he managed to pull himself up into a sitting position. Charlie could see that he wanted to run, but he was pretty grateful that he didn’t appear to be fit to do so in that moment. Charlie really didn’t want to risk the boy running straight back to Bella, especially not while she was eating - that was just a recipe for disaster after all.

“Charlie.” He answered before he cast a glance in Bella’s general direction. She was a noisy eater so he could hear her from where they were sitting. “Charlie Weasley. Who are you?”

The boy stared at him for an uncomfortably long time before he finally spoke. “Zuko.” The tone of his voice told Charlie that that was meant to mean something to him, but it didn’t ring any bells so he brushed it off. For now his main concern was figuring out what was going on.

“Nice to meet you, Zuko. What are you doing here?” He asked slowly, deciding that the best way to get any sort of answers was to just ask them outright.

“Here?” Zuko repeated as he looked around them before fumbling to his feet. “I…” He began but trailed off. Charlie could see that he was somewhat confused, not that he could really blame him for being so, not when he had literally been found unconscious. “Where is here?”

Charlie frowned slightly but he too stood up as he watched the boy sway ever-so-slightly. He looked as if he might pass out again and Charlie figured that the best way to make sure that he didn’t fall and hurt himself was to mirror his actions for the moment.

“The Ridgebit Dragon Sanctuary.” Charlie told him, keeping his words slow and careful so as to not confuse Zuko any more than he already was. He could see from the boy’s expression that Charlie’s answer didn’t help him at all though. “In Romania. I found you unconscious next to one of our residents.”

Zuko nodded slightly, but Charlie knew that that hadn’t actually cleared anything up for him. He watched as Zuko looked around the forest before he turned back to face him. “And Romania is where..?”

Charlie’s frown deepened. He wondered if the boy was suffering from some sort of head injury, but he seemed totally fine in himself, growing a lot more steady on his feet.

“Europe.” He told the boy carefully, watching as that didn’t even seem to make any sort of sense to him either.

“Last I remember, I was… Where’s Aang?” He asked, the last words tumbling out seemingly before Zuko had even managed to finish his thought.

"Aang is… a friend of yours?" Charlie prompted, wondering if the boy's head trauma ran deeper than just his apparent memory loss. He did seem rather confused, and as far as Charlie was aware there was no-one else visiting the reserve that day. Visitors were required to sign in for their own health and safety, not to mention the fact that they generally weren't meant to just freely roam on their own in case they came face to face with a dragon even less friendly than Bella, which was very possible.

"Uh. Kind of." Zuko nodded, though Charlie could tell that there was something that the boy wasn't saying. He didn't know Zuko well enough to pry though so instead he just kept quiet.

"Did you apparate here accidentally?" Charlie asked after a moment or two more. There wasn't really any other explanation for how he could have gotten here and not known but the word 'apparate' seemed to cause confusion in itself. Charlie inwardly swore as he realised that there was a chance that this boy was in fact a muggle, something that he hadn't yet even considered. The boy had seen the dragons and he wasn't at all phased so he couldn't be, could he?

"I… I don't know how I got here." Zuko confessed as he turned to meet Charlie's gaze once more. He still looked confused but at least he looked less dazed. "I was with Aang on Roku's Island, fighting a dragon, and the next thing I know, I'm here."

Charlie blinked a couple of times. He'd never heard of Roku's Island before but it was more of a surprise to him that someone would want to fight a dragon. He might not have got on at all well with Bella but he would never want to fight with her. He supposed it made sense that Zuko would have found himself dropped into the dragon reserve though.

His eyes flickered once again to the scar across Zuko's eye. If the boy made it a habit to fight dragons, he supposed that a dragon could have caused that, though he was definitely glad that it wasn't one of  _ his _ dragons that had caused it.

"That wasn't the dragon." Zuko muttered as he turned away, probably trying to figure out how he was meant to get back to his battle and his island.

Charlie gave a small nod, deciding better than to ask what had actually caused it. "Uh. I can take you back to my base camp so we can figure out how to get you home?"

Zuko blinked a couple of times, leaving Charlie to wonder what he had said wrong, before he nodded. "Okay."

Charlie didn't say anything more as he turned and they headed off in the opposite direction of Bella. She had been his last feed of the day, fortunately, or else the other dragons would probably have been fighting by now. As it was they were quite lucky that the dragons all seemed to live in relative peace without ripping chunks out of one another on a daily basis which was some achievement.

Back at base camp, Charlie made Zuko some breakfast before he went to change. There was something about dead deer that always made him feel the need to shower before he felt clean again, but today he had to make an exception so that he could keep an eye on his guest. He didn't know how to help the boy, however. He didn't even know of anyone that would be able to help, except maybe his mum, but she was in a whole other country so there was very little that she would be able to do.

He took a seat on the ground opposite Zuko who was holding up the cup of tea that he had made him with an expression on his face that almost looked like disgust. Charlie didn't know how anyone could dislike tea, but then he supposed his vice of choice had once been cigarettes and a lot of people turned their noses up at those.

"I don't think this is my world." Zuko said after a few moments of silence during which Charlie helped himself to some breakfast but at Zuko's words, he found that he really wasn't hungry at all.

"Not your world?" He frowned as he turned slightly to look at the boy. He didn't really know what that meant and couldn't even decide if it made sense at all or not. In a way, he supposed it did. There was something about Zuko that certainly said that he was at least from another time, if not place than he was.

Zuko nodded as he set his tea down. "In my world, dragons? They're extinct. All except two. Here you have so many."

Charlie couldn't argue with that; they'd seen a good number of them on their way back to the camp from Bella. He couldn't imagine a world where there were only two dragons though. It just didn't make any sense to him as someone who had practically dedicated his entire life to protecting the creatures.

"And you were fighting one of the only dragons?" Charlie asked slowly. He was really struggling to make sense of it all, but he was trying.

"Yes, but it's not like that. I was trying to… to prove that I'm worthy. Aang was trying to prove the same.. I think… something must have opened a gateway when the two dragons connected or something…"

"How does that prove you're worthy?" Charlie couldn't help but frown as he tried to figure that one out.

"My people have their customs." Zuko seemed to be happy enough to at least attempt to explain. "Even this -" he pointed to the scar on his face "- is a symbol of my supposed loss of honour."

Charlie's frown deepened but he nodded slightly. "Sounds like a pretty dangerous world to me." He said quietly, not so sure that he was in any hurry to get the boy back to his own world now. He wanted to ask more about the scar, if someone had inflicted it on him or if it had just appeared but instead he decided just to make himself eat. They'd come up with a plan on how to get him home later but for now they both just needed some time to process everything that had happened, and that definitely consisted of drinking tea.


End file.
